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Deep Green - A Pool Playing Robot?
o0zi writes "A Canadian scientist has created another game-playing machine, designed for a far simpler purpose than chess: playing pool. The world's first pool-playing robot consists of a slim box that glides along tracks above a pool table, and shoots using a camera-guided cue. Deep Green pots only half the shots it plans for - supposedly the same as a below average player - but this is expected to improve."
a pool CLEANING robot.
or at least something that can clean for me.
A Canadian scientist has created another game-playing machine, designed for a far simpler purpose than chess: playing pool.
Far simpler perhaps, in ways. The strategy behind a pool game might be easier compared to chess, but there's nothing physical in chess that needs simulating. That's a whole new ball game (ha!) for a computer/robot over a chess simulation.
This looks up there with the research into teaching robots to walk, scale stairs & run. Good solid research sure, but I wouldn't go putting it down by comparing it to a chess simulation.
At last: a pool opponent who doesn't spend the entire match distracting you by chalking their cue!
I wonder if it will be able to beat Kasparov?
But what is the SIGnificance?
Also there is less recognition for shots in pool because strategies are different compared to where you play. The base rules system is easier than chess, but you have near-infinite possibilities for aligning shots, taking shots and winning. If you're playing someone who can sink the table on a streak, the robot had better be able to do the same. Plus there's breaking... does the bot know how to break a rack and sink a couple each time? If not, it's not a very good pool bot, whereas it doesn't take much these days to create a chess bot that is *amazing* at chess by even pro standards. They have all the stats from previous games to go by. Stats won't help a robot with billiards, as there are no coordinates recorded to base new calulations on. Perhaps there *should* be? I think it would be fairly easy to record coords from each pro game from this day forward and the billiards industry should invent a table that does it. That would be awesome for so many reasons.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Now they only need to make a robot that sucks at golf. Of course, important aspects of the design will include a synthesized "FUCK! God DAMMIT! Stupid fucking sandtrap!" on 50% of shots made.
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
Any British /.ers remember a Horizon[1] episode where they built a snooker playing robot. Must have been 10/15 years ago now. Played on a reduced size table with fewer balls (10 rather than 15 reds IIRC). The gantry for the robo-cue included steel pillars at the corners of the table, thus making it really hard for the human competitor.
[1] Horizon is a science program on BBC2.
designed for a far simpler purpose than chess: playing pool.
This comment shows the poster has no idea what playing pool is about.
It's more than just line up / aim at the center of the ball / shoot more or less hard : you have to pot the ball, yes, but you also have to replace your white ball so that the next shot is easier. Often you have to think 2, 3, 4 shots ahead. Often you plan your entire game before playing the first shot.
In order to control the white ball, there's a certain about of spin to give it on the vertical plan and horizontal plan (english) so that the ball is deflected differently on the cushion(s), depending on the angle they arrive. Giving english to a ball also deflect its path (it won't roll straight), so that has to be accounted for in the aiming (you aim a little off). And then all tables don't react the same, some have newer, less "grabby" cloths than others... Then there's the roughness of the cue tie and the chalk, and the suppleness of the cue's wood that affects greatly how much english is put on the ball. Then of course there are all the "special" shots, like massés, that require a lot of practive to control... etc...
Playing pool is a LOT more complex than chess, and that's not just because it involves real physics. The problem has many many variables, and it takes many years of practice to master. I've been playing for 20 years, at least 2 hours per day, and I still couldn't beat a professional. It's a very demanding game.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Deep Blue now Deep Green *YAWN* someone wake me up when we see Deep Pink the nympho robot.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
--From "Whitehole", Red Dwarf, Series 4
That said, I agree that the 'english', the spin placed on the ball will be a challenge. Especially if they wish to play on snooker tables as opposed to eight or nine ball tables. The correct cloth for a snooker table has a directional nap (kind of like the effect of velvet... if you brush it one way it raises up, the other way, it lays flat), while the cloth on an eight or nine ball table does not. Having a directional nap affects how the ball travels on the table depending on whether you are shooting up or down the table, or diaganally across. The nap is even on the cloth on the rails and affects how the ball 'throws' off the cushion. So the spin (siding, tops, bottoms, stun, etc.) probably challenges the programmers quite a bit. You can compute that reaction, but it will be different again when playing on the directionaless nap of an eight or nine ball table. And in either type, the age of the cloth will play a role in how the ball travels.
Of course this can all be programmed in. But how difficult/interesting it will be. I would think it will be kind of like trying to program a robot to walk on two legs with the floor tilting every now and then. The robot has to dynamically compensate for environment as well as do the 'simple' mathimatical calculations of the angle of the shot... which is probably not so simple, simce they are trying to factor in 'position' as well. (Position: like playing shape, but thinking more than one ball ahead.)
I wonder if they have figured out how it is to react when the competitor spills a beer on the table? Or tries to stiff you on the bet? Now those are some challenging environmental variables. :-)
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Q: What's green, and if it falls out of a tree and lands on you it could kill you?
A: A pool table.
Goodness... our poor server may survive....
I must admit that is pleasing to have our project on slashdot. It's been a fun project and is getting me a M.Sc out of it :P.
Having a pool table in your lab is a lot of fun on friday afternoons.
For those /.'s interested the robot should be playing a game entirely on its own in the spring. We are still very much in the early stages of development, but we have made lots of progress over the last 16 months from when the gantry was delivered.
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -Tom Waits
Hey...I watched the "The Color of Money" starrring Ton Cruise and Paul Neuman - I know all about Pool Hustlng.